Updates with Dan

Dan here. Today was the first day of my new diet thingy. It went....interestingly. I'm not going to get into this too much, but suffice it to say that a couple of shakes and a good meal are the cornerstone of the diet part. Well, the shake part of the cornerstone tasted like crap. That was very disappointing. All hope is not lost though. The shake itself is really just a vehicle for some coconut oil and especially a huge dose of egg whites (the most usable form of protein around). Since Ali has come up with some amazing green shakes, I am going to tweak her recipe a bit and get myself all set up. The good news is that in addition to getting what I need, I will also be getting more servings of green vegetables in about two days than I have had combined in 38 years. Woo Hoo! I will probably write more later on Voxdan.

Went out to grab some books at the library today only to discover halfway there that something is wrong with our battery - and, dare I say it (I dare, I dare), our alternator. This is on top of bad brakes, bad power steering, tires seriously in need of rotation, and a few other smaller things. When it rains it pours. I was just getting ready to take it in for those other things. I suppose it's a good thing that the battery exposed itself before I did though - now I can give them all my money....er....have it all taken care of at once. Yay! So, instead of risking the 30+ minute drive to the nearest Honda dealer in a car that could stall at any moment, we are going to call AAA early in the morning and have them take it down for us. I'll deal with Honda over the phone (a conversation I have already initiated), and find my way down there - hopefully the same day - with either my first born or my right arm and leg, in a borrowed car, maybe??? We'll see. I'll let you know how it goes, if I remember.

So, that is what' happening right now, at 10:44pm, as I wait for the melatonin to kick in. Yup, Dan is actually trying to go to bed earlier. It's all part of the new Dan. I decided that I want to either lose my weight or most of it by my 38th birthday in January (or at least be well on my way) and spend the next two years preemptively kickin forty in the ass. Lord willing, we will be an ATV'ing, camping, hiking, kayaking, exploring, shooting, Colorado good-time having family by then, which is another way of saying, I will not have died of fatness. Hey, I have lost 11.5 pounds in the last 6 weeks just thinking about beginning my diet. That's a good start.

A couple funny kids quotes...

File under "Short Attention Span:"

Lately Abby has been writing songs for God. The last one was to the tune of "Frere Jacques." "I love you, God; I love you, God, I love you! I love you! Thanks for making Jesus, thanks for making Jesus..." Then she petered out to ask PJ if she wanted to watch her flush the toilet.

***

The girls and I were playing camping this evening. This always involves "fishing"--we typically use a bunch of beanbags as our fish and usually I'll name them according to the kind of cloth they are (the pinkish ones are salmon, the ones with stars are starfish, etc.). Tonight, however, we all named our own...

Me: "Oh! I caught something! Look, a rainbow trout!"

Abby: "I got something! It's a beanbag silka fish!"

Penny Jane: "I got something too! It's...it's...it's Robert! That a good name?"

Estes Park Happenings

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, maybe not that extreme--in either direction--but we did have a lot of fun along with some really sucky times, too.

We got there on Tuesday after an uneventful drive, and took a brief drive around town to kill time until check-in. This included a stop at Laura's, a candy/cookie/chocolate/ice cream store that the Mittelbergs recommended to us. It wasn't cheap. But it was soooo worth it.



For the rest of the trip the girls would ask with annoying frequency when we were going back.





Once we got there we had a period of frustration--the room was not what we were expecting. Kind of a bummer. But we set up house and I took the girls down to the play area to stretch their legs for a bit before dinner.



The next morning the girls were up at their usual bright and early hour, so at snack time I took them downtown for a snack at Kind Coffee, a little indie place on the Riverwalk, and after we ate we took a little time down along the water to play before going to the library (which was really nice!) to kill time before lunch.




Gluten-free chocolate chip pumpkin muffin. To. Die. For.



For the last couple weeks Dan's been showing the girls pictures of things to do in EP, and one of the things they latched onto was bowling. Every five minutes after we arrived one of them would ask when we were going, so that was our first post-lunch stop. Chipper's is a chain around Colorado, and the pictures on the website were definitely not of the EP location. Eight lanes (which we're convinced were not level--at least not ours) in a dodgy-looking building, one guy behind the counter and not another soul in the place besides us, but when you're four you don't care--you just want your turn to come back around.




They had this great little ramp--just aim and push!


'Course PJ just *had* to try it the old-fashioned way--which resulted in the lone guy behind the counter having to walk to the middle of the alley where the ball had stopped and bring it back for us.


Maybe next year you'll be strong enough to granny-roll it to the end, kiddo. But for now we'll stick to the ramp.



When we were done we went to the visitors center to see what we could find, and ended up with a map of Rocky Mountain National Park. PJ's occupational therapist had told us about a one-way dirt road that went up the mountain to a visitor center, and we found it on the map and decided to give it a try.

Well. Let us say this is not a drive for the faint of heart--especially if you're faint of heart because of heights. Or rather, very steep drop-offs. Or driving in the rain. On pothole-pitted dirt roads. But--despite the multiple mutterings of, "This is nuts" over the nine mile (at about 15 miles an hour) drive, it was *so* worth the time. The scenery was just amazing.






Yes, that would be ice.

We took a paved road back down the mountain and straight into downtown, where we found Chicago's Best, a restaurant one of my Facebook friends had recommended. The restaurant itself wasn't anything to write home about, but the food was great. Calzones, hot dogs, garlic cheese bread, and enough for two meals. After that we went home and hung out on our balcony singing silly songs and watching the sunset and snuggling together when it got really cold.




PJ took this one. Not bad, eh?



Thursday was not a good day. After complaining since waking up about a sore stomach, Abby threw up at 9...and 10...and 11:30...then crashed out on the couch. She got bored being home even though she was still throwing up, so we went back into the national forest and drove around through one of the camping areas to see what it was like. By the time we left, we were totally psyched to go camping--we're planning on giving it a shot next year when PJ is a little older. We also took a brief stop to talk a little walk partway around Lake Sprague.





When we got home we barbecued our dinner, and the girls went to bed, poor Abby still throwing up now and then. She woke up around 9:30 and hung out with us in the living room for a while, was sick one last time, then went to bed with me around 11.

Friday was our last day. We let the girls spend the morning in front of the Disney Channel (thanks for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse marathon, Disney!) while we packed up the place, then checked out at 11 and went downtown to visit a couple places. I picked up a beautiful skein of yarn at a local yarn shop, and we had lunch at Penelope's, which boasted the best hamburger in town. (It was indeed a tasty burger, though I don't think I'd label it the best in town, and their prices certainly didn't encourage you to keep coming back.) After that we drove back into the national park and took the paved road back up to the top, hoping to get the photos we'd wanted to get on Wednesday but couldn't because of the rain. When we got to the Alpine Visitors Center at the top, it was snowing! Tiny crumbs of snow were blowing, not really landing and definitely not accumulating, but still. Snow. The second week of September. Insane! But it was only partly cloudy, and as you can see the views were incredible. These pictures do them no justice at all.







Abby and I got out at one of the lookout points on the way up. Here is her...


...surveying this.

We also finally saw some wildlife! We hadn't seen anything "cool" the first two times we'd gone in, and the girls kept asking when they were going to see something. We'd really hoped to see some moose, but this pack of elk and this industrious marmot (that was building a nest in that pipe) were fun to watch, too.





We made a last-minute decision to go home via Winter Park, rather than going back down the mountain towards EP. Why not, right? We figured it would be a great way to scout out the area, since we'd heard a lot of people talking about it. At first we questioned our decision...turns out they were down to one lane in two different spots within the park, and then again just outside of Winter Park. Ages of idling and having to yet again answer, "Why aren't we moving?"



Turns out Winter Park isn't much of anything in the off-season, but hey, now we know. We did, however, find Hernando's Pizza and Pasta Pub, a fun (and really really yummy) restaurant with excellent food and very reasonable prices. (Their "thing" is collecting dollar bills that customers decorate for them. In 2005, they had over 15,000 dollar bills decorating the restaurant. They're on the tables, on the walls, on the ceilings...I'd love to know how many they have now!


(I had a better picture of this, but apparently my phone ate it. But on the wall behind PJ you can see a few rows of them hanging.)

The rest of the drive home was uneventful. Beautiful sunset, though...


We got back just at bedtime, and the girls crashed out pretty quick despite having napped on the way home.

As with almost all vacations, it was lovely to be home and to sleep in our own bed. But, despite the bumps along the way, we really did enjoy Estes Park. We can't wait to go back--and maybe next time we'll sleep in a tent!

Estes Park, Baby!

So, it's Sunday and we are almost on our way to Estes Park! The whole family is very excited. It is really the first family vacation we have been on in...well...maybe ever. We've visited family, gone a few places with Lee and Leslie, and had a few day trips, but this is the first time I can think of when we were going by ourselves, someplace we have never been, with the sole purpose of relaxing and just having a good time with nothing on the schedule. Woo Hoo!

Before we leave Tuesday morning though, we first have to get ready for a little Labor Day BBQ! The Smith's are coming down for some grillin' and chillin' (I was sorry the minute I typed that). Anyways, should be fun. We love the Smith's and are children love to play together. I wish we all lived closer.

But back to Estes Park. Our room is amazing (a floor plan is below), and the area is beautiful (a few other pictures below). I founds some activities to keep us busy and the girls can't stop talking about them. We found a bowling ally with a preschoolers time where games are only $2 and shoes are free, a few family fun parks with mini-golf, bumper boats and all that good stuff, and a handful of other things to do. The Mittelbergs said we had to go to an amazing ice cream shop up there called Laura's. I was even more excited when, after looking into it, I found that Laura's is also a fudge shop and candy store! I put a picture of that below too.

So, again, we are all very excited. Please pray for travel mercies and a blessed time. We will tell you all how it went when we get back.

Thank you, Dora

Abby: Mom, what else rhymes with 'go'?

Me: Bow, row, flow, so, no, glow--

PJ: Cinco!

(Now, what's really impressive is that she not only got the rhyme right, but that she's only heard 'cinco' a handful of times, and hasn't heard it in at least a week. Though, I guess at this age that's all it takes for things to sink in to their wee little sponge brains, eh?)

PJ the artiste

PJ drew her first truly representational pictures the other day--they're so cute!

In the upper left we have Abby. Dan said when she first finished it, one of the eyes was just a big empty circle. Dan said, "Why don't you add a pupil to that empty eye?" To his surprise, she knew exactly what he meant and added a big dot in the empty circle.

The two somewhat circular shapes in the top middle were her first attempts at circles for Abby's head. She drew one and said, "Whoops! That not right!", drew another and said the same thing, then drew the final circle that actually became the picture of Abby.

At the bottom are two Christmas trees. :) The other lines and stuff--no idea what her little mind was aiming for. Oh, and the person is Dan's work. :)

Pennyisms

An update to the Penny Jane lexicon:

kajamas = the cute outfits you get to sleep in

gabella = the fun toy that keeps you dry when it rains

prettiful = what you call lovely things